Van Dyck ─ The Anatomy of Portraiture

This landmark volume is a comprehensive survey of the portrait drawings, paintings, and prints of Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), one of the most celebrated practitioners of the genre. His supremely elegant style and ability to capture a subject’s inner life made him a favored portraitist among high-ranking figures and royalty across Europe.

Showcasing the full range of Van Dyck’s fascinating international career with more than 100 works, this catalogue celebrates the artist’s versatility, inventiveness, and unique approach to portraiture. Works include preparatory drawings and oil sketches that shed light on Van Dyck’s working process, prints that allowed his work to reach a wider audience, and grand painted portraits. Some of the masterpieces are drawn from the exceptional holdings of The Frick Collection, while other works are published here for the first time. Also included are drawings by some of Van Dyck’s contemporaries—including his teacher Peter Paul Rubens—that illuminate the lineage of his working method. With insightful contributions by international scholars, this unparalleled study of Van Dyck offers a compelling case for the distinctiveness and importance of the artist’s work.

Stijn Alsteens is curator in the department of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Adam Eaker is guest curator and former Anne L. Poulet Fellow at The Frick Collection.An Van Camp is assistant keeper of Northern European art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and former assistant keeper of Dutch and Flemish drawings and prints before 1880 at the British Museum. Xavier F. Salomon is Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at The Frick Collection. Bert Watteeuw is curator of research collections at the Rubenianum, Antwerp.